Transportation
Materials accompany you safe travel
From vast universe to land and ocean, Saint-Gobain ceramic materials is always committed to provide innovative material solutions for transportation, so as to create a safer, comfortable and environment-friendly travel mode for you.Plasma Chambers for Hall Effect Thrusters
One common application for Saint-Gobain Boron Nitride is channels used in Hall-effect thrusters for satellites. A Hall Effect thruster combines an electric field with a magnetic field to ionize a gas flow (typically Xenon) to generate plasma. The electric field inside an annular channel accelerates the ions in the plasma to very high exhaust velocities.
For the plasma chamber in a Hall Effect Thruster to work, an advanced ceramic is required that can withstand the high temperatures from the plasma generation process, whilst keeping the ionization efficiency at the highest possible values. Boron Nitride does just that due to its excellent resistance to sputtering as well as its secondary electron emission properties.